Jailbird
by RoYale
Summary: [AU][eventual 38] Sanzo's broke, homeless, and back in the US. And things are about to get worse, enter the new job.
1. somewhere inbetween

**.a.n.:** Eto, where to start... Well, I picked up 38 (since it was -gasp- open) at 30kisses a month or so ago, and settled in for the long haul by prepping for a story that would have to span thirty chapters, and a whole lot more pages. So far, I'm stuck on chapter two, so for inspiration (and because some people suggested it), I'm posting this up on FFnet, in a hopefully non-futile attempt to get my muses working.This _is_ anAU fic, and so far, though I've roughly outlined 28 chapters of it, I've yet to finalize any characters, etc. But that's not important. If you notice my characters going OOC, have any ideas, etc., I'd love to hear them. The first chapter's a bit short, since it's my teaser/intro, and hopefully, the chapters'll get longer as the plot progresses. Hope you enjoy, please take good care of me!

**.d.i.s.c.l.a.i.m.e.r.:** I wasn't aware that Minekura wrote Saiyuki in AU. -sweatdrop- It's not mine.

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_"The greatest mystery is not that we have been flung at random between the profusion of matter and of the stars, but that within this prison we can draw from ourselves images powerful enough to deny our nothingness."_  
- Andre Malraux

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**chapter one : somewhere inbetween**

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_  
4/25 5:56 PM_

**forgive me Father, for i have sinned.**

He ignored the sign.

* * *

_  
4/30 11:08 PM_

Six days prior, three inches of the "now hiring" page had been devoted to four-line black-and-white ad.

Wanted: prison guard  
12-Hour Shifts  
$20/hour, meals included  
Contact: (893) 390-5892

It'd been a gift from heaven.

Fresh off the plane with what amounted to fifty dollars in _yuan_, Sanzo was flirting with bankruptcy - again. The last job had been a nightmarish fiasco, and after wasting a year of his life chasing an imaginary deity through the hills of China, he was once more rejoining the ranks of American homeless and jobless.

The first thing he'd done was contact Koumyo.

The old monk had been understanding, or as understanding as he could be through the muffled laughs. Not willing to let the chance go, he'd subtly poked the younger man's ego until Sanzo had stormed out, lest he shoot Koumyo in a fit of rage. Five minutes later, the monk called him back and he was given a sofa.

The next thing he did was buy a newspaper.

It'd been comforting sitting in Koumyo's cramped kitchen, sipping tea while the monk hummed. He'd long since gotten used to the other man's tuneless mumbles, perhaps even missed them when he was lost in the mountain's obscuring fogs. It was during a lull in the humming, when he'd leaned over to pour himself another cup, when he'd seen the ad.

Koumyo had taken one look, and laughed. He knew something Sanzo didn't.

The interview had gone fairly quickly. He'd filled out a form, demonstrated his proficiency with a gun, and answered a few questions. No more than thirty minutes after he had entered, he left with a paycheck and directions to start the next night.

Five 6 PMs later, he was beginning to hate the job.

His first impression had been misleading. The building could have been ordinary, had he not later learned that the walls were soundproof and the windows heavily barred. Inside, the night guard had leered at him before handing over a sweat-covered ID card and some basic information. Too basic, it turned out, since he'd managed to lose himself a mere two minutes after leaving the front desk. A right-turn into the cafeteria had found a heavily made-up waitress only too happy to help.

She'd taken one look at his ID before sending him what she considered a soulful gaze. A rough napkin-map later, she offered to keep him company if things got too lonely down at death row.

He probably should've stopped short and quit when she said that, but the pay was high and another like opportunity was questionable. He weighed the pros and cons: babysitting death-kissed men for $120 a day or being babysat by Koumyo for none. As it were, Sanzo had nodded and accepted the napkin but not her offer.

So strong was his determination that he ignored the sign above the door.

The block was fairly simple: one door in and out, no windows and ventilation slits barely larger than a man's hand. The aisle was flanked by two rows of cells, seven to a row. All seven filled on the right, three on the left. Fluorescent lights illuminated the high voltage bars that separated the inmates from the world but kept the old romantic feel of prison, and burned out before shedding light on the back of the cells, leaving a good four feet to the imagination. The solitary desk to the side of the door was scarred, unsturdy, and Sanzo's home for half the day.

And what an exciting half-day it was.

There was something notably different, he discovered, about men who knew they were going to die. For one, they didn't waste energy yelling, demanding lawyers, or complaining. In fact, they didn't speak at all. He enjoyed the calm, breaking it every so often with the turn of a page or the touch of a cup to saucer. One round per twenty minutes was enough to earn his wage.

It'd taken the silence three days to get to him.

It wasn't that he had nothing to do, no - for Sanzo, a job was a job, and time that couldn't be filled with newspapers and tea was well spent staring at his surroundings or checking on the prisoners. But when rain fell on the third day early morning, its patter had been like a foghorn in the dark, and by that, a light as well. It was then he realized that aside from the shallow rises of the chests, automatic blinks of the eyes and occasional rasps of the throats, he had no proof the prisoners were alive. They were fed before and after his shift, bathed by the day nurses on a biweekly schedule, and examined once a month. But they never made a sound.

Humane, death row might be. Sane, it wasn't.

It took him another day to adjust himself to the silence that had suddenly turned heavy. Another day until he could meet the empty eyes of the visible prisoners, another day until sharing air with shells grew on him. He'd been almost relieved when the prisoner in cell eight caught pneumonia and couldn't stop coughing. And he would've felt guilty for feeling relieved, had the sound pollution not been so welcome.

When he arrived on the fifth night, prisoner eight had been "Removed for Immediate Medical Attention" - they didn't want him to die before they could kill him. Sanzo acknowledged the information with a grunt, and resigned himself to another night of unnatural silence. Settling himself with a cup of tea and the career section, he took a sip.

And would've choked, had desperation not forced him silent.

For the first time in fifty-four hours, there was another voice in the block. Only a whisper, amplified by the cement walls and sound-hungry air, but a voice nonetheless. Swearing at a god he didn't know he had, Sanzo traced the voice quickly, praying it wouldn't stop.

Left side, cell three.

The occupant of cell two, a ragged, greasy man, was pressed against the right corner of his cage, as close to cell three as possible. As Sanzo passed his cell, he looked up and grinned. Sanzo averted his eyes from the rotten teeth, and continued.

Or he would have.

Prisoner three was visible for the first time since Sanzo had been there, stretched out languidly under the fluorescent lights instead of behind his four feet of darkness. He nodded genially at Sanzo, shooting him a quick smile before resuming his conversation on curry. Sanzo nodded back dumbly, and returned to his desk.

Even without a file, he recognized the convict. Defined face to long neck, long neck to long limbs and body clothed in prison orange. Pleasant smile set on too pale skin, white dust floating on faded brown hair. Eyes greener than any he'd seen, contacts included.

He hadn't known he was in this block.

Cho Gonou.

_

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yuan_: Chinese monetary unit 

**.a.n.:** Reading this over again, I feel an urge to rewrite it. Though I've rewritten it already. Six times. -cringe- I promise that the future chapters will be better? Also, I might use romanized Chinese from here to there, where it's necessary, but I'll always include explanations at the end. It won't be too common, 'cause otherwise, I might as well be writing this in Chinese (which I can't), but if something's unclear or you feel it's unnecessary, let me know. Anyway, hope it wasn't too painful, until next time!


	2. teardrop on fire

**.a.n.: **Ehehe, it's been a while. A long long while. This really does get updated faster on my LJ, but not by much. -shame- But since it's summer now...maybe I can churn these out faster, yeah? Anyway, here's chapter two, three will be up in a few days, esp. if I get spammed for it. XD Hope you enjoy, please take good care of me!

**.d.i.s.c.l.a.i.m.e.r.:** I just watched GUNLOCK and I wish I wish I WISH it were mine. -cries-

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_"The farther I leave the past, the closer I am to forgiving my own character."_  
- Isabelle Eberhardt

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**chapter two : teardrop on fire**

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_5/1 7:39 PM_

It took a while for Sanzo to traverse the few hundred feet to his desk and chair, but he made it eventually. There were prisoner files in the drawers, he remembered – what if an inmate escaped, or even worse, misbehaved? – though he didn't really need them. Convicted five years ago and sentenced under a biased jury and thirsty American public, Cho Gonou had been the O.J. Simpson of his time – sans trial, wife, and lawyer.

Perhaps things would've gone better in another era. As it were, Cho had chosen a bad time to commit felony. In a moment six months before Gonou's offense, a man named William Stevenson had killed his pregnant wife, to put it mildly. "Pulled a Caligula," the papers screamed, "cut open her belly, ate her child, all while she watched in pain." And while Sanzo remained distrustful of the sensationalized press, murder was murder, cold and slick. Stevenson v. Levine appealed all the way to the Supreme Court.

Legal arguments sucked up five months, but the entire matter eventually wrapped up – in the worst way possible. On August 12th, the defense lawyer's plead of mental instability bought Stevenson a spot in the nation's number one asylum.

The masses were outraged – and rightfully so. All evidence had pointed to Stevenson's guilt (incomplete data, the criminal lawyer claimed) and the wife's family hadn't received anything by way of compensation. It hadn't helped that Stevenson escaped the institution one week later, leaving perfect red holes in the heads of a nearby neighborhood before turning the Colt .45 mm on his own eyes.

So when Cho Gonou was discovered in quiet little Albuquerque six months later, surrounded by bodies and bathed in blood, he went straight to the Supreme Court. In a series of faux trials, Cho was charged with the murder of his then fiancée (lover and familial relation? the periodicals speculated) and "disturbing the peace." The criminal defense lawyer had tried (as much as an intern could) to plead insane, guilty, religion; but several choice slips he made in the courtroom revealed that he cared for Cho as much as the other side did. New Mexico had hired the top prosecution and they'd appealed their way – post haste – through the district and federal courts. Finally, Cho was declared guilty after a forty-five minute review by the Supreme Court. His sentence would be immediate death via lethal injection.

The American public, fickle ingrates, Sanzo snorted, had immediately settled down, sated and ready to watch Bollywood once again. Cho's execution was pushed back by international treatises, a presidential scandal, a recount; until finally, it'd been waiting five years out of a now indeterminate amount.

Sanzo pushed the facts into the pack of his mind – they'd only been important when he was nineteen and still in law school. Since then, things had only gone downhill: he'd plunged from being a defender of the law to serving as its enforcer, he spent a year face to face with China's biggest hills, and he was playing nanny to the most prolific mass-murderer of the twenty-first century. Nevertheless, he dug Cho Gonou's file from the depths (an oxymoron, he thought, with more than a pinch of annoyance) of his creaking desk, opening the coffee-ring stained, burnt folder. He obviously hadn't been the only officer intrigued – spooked – by this particular convict.

_Name:_, he read, _Cho Gonou._

...Sex: M  
...Age: 23 (he raised an eyebrow)  
...Height: 6'1"  
...Weight: 152 lbs  
...Eye color: Green  
...Hair color: Brown  
...Blood Type: AB  
...Offense: Genocide  
...Sentence: Death by lethal injection

The file went on to elaborate, even quote from some more popular headlines between the smudges and ink marks left by previous wardens. Nothing of interest, Sanzo decided, and nothing he didn't know already. The blood of one female and at least a hundred gang-males on his long, thin fingers, and none on his green green eyes.

The man's whispered conversation jerked him back into consciousness.

"Rounds," Sanzo muttered, getting up to walk another. The repetitive circles were dizzying, as he'd told Koumyou before collapsing on the sofa that morning. The old monk had patted his head knowingly, making Sanzo feel five again, before pouring a cup of tea and enquiring further.

"The people?" Koumyou had asked, staring out the window.  
"Whores." Sanzo mumbled into the cushion, "Convicts. Bastards."  
Koumyou's smile only grew wider, "The food?"  
"Whore." Sanzo repeated, "Serves food."  
"How about Gonou?"

Sanzo had shot into the air, fixing the obviously-pleased monk with a glare – surprised, but accusing. "You didn't warn me," he grated, but it came out more sulky than he'd intended.

"You don't need an answer to that," Koumyou teased, and of course it'd been Sanzo's fault for not asking.  
"He's..." Sanzo had gone back to his cushion, "...different."  
"Most murderers are," Koumyou replied breezily.  
"From what the papers said," Sanzo had snapped, irritable, "from what I thought he'd be."

Koumyou nodded, sage before he sent an airplane in Sanzo's direction. "The headlines," he sing-songed, "for what they're worth."

Sanzo felt the crumpled ball in his pocket as he finished his first circuit, managing not to look cell three in the eye. "And then, if you add just a pinch of ginger..." Cho's voice followed him, heavy for all its light conversation, "you'll get the perfect taste..."

Cho Gonou was still rattling on about curry when Sanzo did his second round, twenty minutes later, and his third round, another twenty after that. What deathly silence had permeated the block earlier had all but dissipated, and most of the prisoners were nodding slowly in cadence with Cho's lilt. Though he couldn't help but feel Cho was testing him in some way, Sanzo waited, between breaths, for the next word, and the next. Something about the tone, the sound. Or perhaps, just the voice.

"Ne, _xian sheng_," Cho stopped in mid-sentence, stopping him in mid-round. "Excuse me."

Sanzo turned around, wary for all his guns and chains.

"_Xian sheng..._" Cho continued, "Have you been to China recently?"  
Sanzo nodded slowly, dumbly.  
"Where?" Cho asked, smile forming and eyes closing, "Northwest?"  
Sanzo nodded again, and Cho chuckled.  
"What was it you were doing, so far away from home?" Cho sounded a bit wistful, to his pounding ears.  
"Work," Sanzo rasped, turning back around.  
"Work?" Cho repeated, "In such a beautiful country? Did you not enjoy the hills?"  
"Hated them," Sanzo said, back still turned.

Cho pressed himself closer to the bars and Sanzo smelt crisped hair, turned around to watch small shocks of electricity play through the convict's hair, over a hidden eye. Cho just smiled at him (so like Koumyou, his subconscious whispered) and closed his eye in concentration. Then, he took a deep breath.

Sanzo stood and watched Cho breathe, confused, annoyed, and utterly bewitched.

"You smell like China," Cho spoke, eye still closed, "Spices, medicine. Hills, gutters. Cigarettes. Apples. Pigs." And hummed, an old ditty Sanzo recognized as native to the country he'd just returned from.

He probably would've stared longer, but the block door burst open.

"Mr. Genjyo?" a man stuck his head in (slim, pressed, Sanzo noted, bureaucratic wimp), "I have a letter for..." he consulted the envelope in his hand, "Taylor Warren."

There was a sizzle and the man in cell two yelped before scrambling back to his shadows.

Sanzo took the letter in two quick strides, leaving the visitor to show himself out. Cell block two might as well be empty, Sanzo's brow furrowed, moody from the preceding events and interruption of said occurrings. He held up his gun, ready to shoot the prisoner out.

"Sanzo." The man was gone, and the voice (not tone) was far too familiar. "Sanzo."

Cho, he realized, turning to face the all-too-clear eye and serious face, was calling him. Except...

"Give me the letter."

...Cho didn't know him...know his last name, much less his first...know his age, his status, know _him_. Yet Cho...

"The letter, Sanzo."

...was talking to him as only Koumyou dared, ordering without ordering, asking without asking, and his hand was moving and all of a sudden Cho had the letter and was opening it reading it hungrily.

Sanzo shook out of his daze when Cho nudged him with the crisp white paper, eye a bit sad and mouth even more so.

"Cho Gonou..." he breathed, because he hadn't exhaled for he couldn't remember how long.  
"Hakkai." Cho said absently, "Now, Sanzo, if you would please go back to your desk. I'll inform Taylor, and we'll take it from there."

Sanzo walked back to his desk, dazed for the second time in just as many days, and read the letter.

He decided it'd been very right for Cho to handle it.

_Mr. Taylor Warren – _

This letter is to inform you that your execution has been set for 9:00 AM on May 4th. Please inform your guard of any and all things you may require – priest, will, phone call, etc. You will be escorted to the grounds at 8:00 AM. Please be ready. Thank you.

Sincerely.

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_xian sheng_: Chinese term for "sir"

_Song:_ "Teardrop" by Massive Attack

**.a.n.:** And because I forgot, the song for the last chapter was "Somewhere In-between" by Lifehouse. Each title is either a song title or a line from a song, so yesh. Yosh 2 out of 30 chapters done. -dies- Hope it wasn't too painful, until next time!


End file.
